What Was Behind the Turkish Coup-Attempt?

Turkey (SCF) – Evidence and reliably informed speculation are the only two rational means that are, as of yet, available to reconstruct the source behind the 15 July 2016 Turkish coup-attempt.

One can reasonably assume that some nation’s intelligence-operation was involved, and that this would have entailed either America’s CIA or Turkey’s equivalent, the MIT or National Intelligence Organization, or else both. America’s CIA has been behind coups in «more than 50 countries». Throughout the CIA’s existence, it has organized or helped others in organizing, most of the world’s coups. Whereas previous empires (i.e., previous international dictatorships) have functioned mainly via overt invasions (using the military), the US international dictatorship operates mainly via coups (using intelligence-operatives) – coups are the American aristocracy’s particular specialty; the CIA is the world-champion specialist in this field, and no other intelligence agency is anywhere in its league, for such operations.

Indeed, the US is the first empire that has functioned mainly by coups, instead of by outright (i.e., military) invasions. The reason for this is that after World War II, when the Allied Powers defeated the fascist powers, the Axis – which had sought to build their empires clearly via the military route (invasions) – the military route has been recognized by publics everywhere as being incompatible with democracy, so that, after WW II, no nation any longer can credibly claim to be a «democracy» if it engages in an invasion that isn’t clearly a response to, and defending against, an existing invasion by the country that’s being invaded by the given country. Even America’s (and Britain’s) 2003 invasion of Iraq was claimed to be ‘defensive’ in nature. (How anyone after that invasion can trust the West, is a question for experts in mass-psychology to address; it’s not a matter to be discussed here. But, after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, coups are practically the only viable means for the US government to enforce its foreign policies. Consequently, the US coup-machine is likely to be even more important post-2003 than it was pre-2003. And US President Barack Obama certainly recognizes that.)

This coup-attempt in Turkey, like all coup-attempts there, was unquestionably carried out by the Turkish military. Wikipedia’s article on the MIT, says that, «According to the former director of Foreign Operations, Yavuz Ataç, the military presence in the organization is negligible. This is a recent development, as the organization has a military heritage… MIT suffered with each coup». That’s understandable, because of the long history of military coups in Turkey, and because of Mustafa Ataturk’s having established in Turkey, in 1922, the ideal of secular democracy for Turkey’s future. Turkey’s military, after 1922, changed its focus away from its previous Ottoman Empire function of external conquest, to its future function of serving as guardian of Turkey’s internal secular democratic future. After WW II, Turkey became a NATO member in 1952, and so one might reasonably assume that Turkey’s military has probably been coordinating many, if not all, of their coups with the CIA.

Consequently, if the CIA was involved in the recent coup-attempt (which Turkey’s government alleges to have been the case), then some alternative to Turkey’s own intelligence service was probably the medium of transmission between the CIA and Turkey’s military: MIT wouldn’t likely have been the organizer of this particular military coup.

What, then, would likely have been the go-between?

The Turkish government alleges that the Turkish international Islamic movement of Fethullah Gülen was behind this coup. However, Turkey’s military has been famous for avoiding all association with Islamic entities, which includes Gülen’s. But that non-association wouldn’t necessarily still be the case if the connection between MIT and the military has now become weaker than it had ever been before. At least the possibility exists that the Gülen movement had infiltrated the military, at the same time as MIT left the military.

Back on 25 February 2010 – when Turkey’s two leading Islamist politicians, Fethullah Gülen and Tayyip Erdoğan, were allied instead of being enemies – the American Establishment (i.e., CIA-associated) magazine Foreign Policy, headlined, «What’s Really Behind Turkey’s Coup Arrests? All signs point to Fethullah Gülen, whose shadowy Islamist movement is rapidly extending its tentacles into all aspects of Turkish political life». This CIA-friendly magazine said, at that time:

«A mountain has moved in Turkish politics. All shots against the military are now fair game, including those below the belt [As a US Establishment – a pro-CIA – magazine, FP promotes the idea that Turkey’s military is the basis of democracy in Turkey, and so this ‘below the belt’ meant that any such serious criticism of Turkey’s military is unworthy of being even considered]. The force behind this dramatic change [the alleged weakening of the Turkish military’s influence in Turkey’s political life] is the Fethullah Gülen Movement (FGH), an ultraconservative political faction that backs the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). The FGH was founded in the 1970s by Fethullah Gülen, a charismatic preacher who now lives in the United States but remains popular in Turkey. It is a conservative movement aiming to reshape secular Turkey in its own image, by securing the supremacy of Gülen’s version of religion over politics, government, education, media, business, and public and personal life». That news-report is, clearly, hostile regarding FGH. It’s against Gülen.

At that time, the US Establishment clearly preferred Erdoğan to Gülen; so, Gülen was being portrayed during that period as the villain in this planned coup against both Erdoğan and the military (the military that is, of course, the core of any Turkish coup; so, obviously, to include the military there along with Erdoğan as having been the target of the coup, was wrong; this was instead solely a coup-attempt against Erdoğan).

Gülen had moved to the United States in 1999, and at that time he sent back to his followers in Turkey a sermon-video with him saying that, «Our friends who have positions in legislative and administrative bodies should learn its details and be vigilant all the time so that they can transform it and be more fruitful on behalf of Islam in order to carry out a nationwide restoration [of the religious-based imperial Ottoman state]. However, they should wait until the conditions become more favorable. In other words, they should not come out too early». That sermon also said«You must move in the arteries of the system without anyone noticing your existence, until you reach all the power centers… You must wait until such time as you have gotten all the state power, until you have brought to your side all the constitutional institutions in Turkey». Germany’s Spiegel reported that Gülen’s organization «has no address, no mailbox, no registration and no central bank account». Secrecy and subterfuge are its way, just as they are the way of the CIA or any other intelligence-agency. Serving that function behind the July 15th coup-attempt would have fit them well.

In 1999, he set up in Pennsylvania the worldwide headquarters for his thriving multi-billion-dollar liberal-Islamist charity, «Hizmet», or «Service» (called by Foreign Policy «ultraconservative», which it also is). Both Gülen and Erdoğan – both of whom had become billionaires by means of corruption (using the government for building enormous wealth for themselves) – accused each other of corruption, but the US government under Barack Obama, refused President Erdoğan’s request to extradite Gülen for trial.

Turkey’s ruling AKP Party had been gradually moving the Turkish government away from the militarily enforced secularism that Mustafa Kemal Ataturk had imposed on the nation in 1922, and then the AKP and FGH became enemies of each other in 2013, when Gülen and Erdoğan blew apart, and this time it is Erdoğan, not Gülen, who is being demonized in Washington as «ultraconservative».

Edward Luttwak is a famous American political ‘scientist’, who had thought that America’s February 2014 bloody coup overthrowing Ukraine’s democratically elected President was okay, but that the West’s acceptance of Russia’s having taken action the very next month to protect Crimeans against Obama’s installed coup-regime would constitute «legitimizing Putin’s use of force». In Foreign Policy, this August 3rd, he headlined «Erdoğan’s Purge Is a Sectarian War», and he argued there that the United States should continue to protect Gülen against Erdoğan. He blamed Erdoğan, and contrasted his «populist Islamists, led by the thinly educated ex-soccer player Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and the university-educated followers of Fethullah Gülen».

Delving far deeper into the relationship between Gülen and the CIA was the former FBI Turkish translator whom the US government has required not to reveal the most incriminating information she had had access to during her FBI employment, Sybel Edmonds, who subsequently has become the publisher of her «Deep State» information site, Boiling Frogs Post. As one writer elsewhere summarized the matter well, but without links to the sources:

«Edmonds claimed that the key link between Fethullah Gülen and his movement with the CIA was Graham Fuller, a prominent intelligence analyst at the RAND Corporation, former CIA station chief in Kabul and Vice President of the National Intelligence Council.

Although he dismissed the allegations about the role of Gülen’s schools in hiding CIA operatives, Fuller admitted that he provided a reference to Gülen at the time the US immigration authorities planned to expel him in 2006. Fuller wrote a letter to the FBI and the US Department of Homeland Security in defence of Gülen. Fuller wrote that he believed Gülen was not a threat to America. Due to this support, Gülen was allowed to stay in the United States. Another person who also wrote a similar letter in defence of Gülen was Morton Abramowitz, former CIA operative in Turkey who later served as a US ambassador in that country».

Image Source: Pixabay.com

A more extensive summary, and with several links to Edmonds’ works, was provided at Boiling Frogs Post, by William Engdahl, headlining on 22 May 2013, «CIA’s Graham Fuller – A Deep State Rogue», where readers can find a more comprehensive presentation of the CIA’s operation with Gülen to weaken Russia. In short: Gülen is a key CIA asset in the American aristocracy’s decades-long effort to conquer Russia. Consequently, if Obama were to extradite him to Turkey, then not only would the American aristocracy lose perhaps its key intelligence-operative against Russia, but Gülen’s trove of secrets might then become known to Russian intelligence, and the entire NATO operation to take over Russia could become fatally compromised.

The US is now stonewalling Turkey’s government, which is trying to get to the bottom of a coup that would almost certainly have succeeded if Russia’s President Vladimir Putin had not contacted Erdoğan hours in advance warning him that it was coming.

On August 11th, Russia Today bannered «Erdoğan ultimatum: ‘US has to choose between Turkey & Gülen’,» and reported: «‘Either the coup-plotting terrorist FETO [Gülenist Terror Organization, term used by non-Gülenists] or the democratic country Turkey. The [US] has to make this choice,’ Erdoğan said in a speech in Ankara on Wednesday, as quoted by the state-run Anadolu Agency».

The leader of Turkey has thus now warned that if the US aristocracy continues what he alleges to be the US government’s backing of this coup-attempt, then Turkey will end its alliance with the US aristocracy, and will become allied instead with Russia. He’s explicitly threatening the US aristocracy. He’s indirectly threatening also NATO, of which Turkey has been a member since 1952. No NATO member country has previously left the anti-Russian military alliance, nor even threatened to leave it.

As of August 14th, a Turkish-organized petition at the US White House website that closes with «I would like our government to stop providing a safe haven to Fethullah Gülen and I want him delivered to Turkey» reached the required number of signatures for the President to be required to respond publicly on the petition’s matter: 100,000 signers.This report prepared by Eric Zuesse for Strategic Culture Foundation.